HYMN. From the recesses of a lowly spirit My humble prayer ascends-O Father, hear it! I know, I feel, how mean and how unworthy For in thy sight, who every bosom viewest, Our hearts forget them. We see thy hand-it leads us, it supports us; We hear thy voice-it counsels and it courts us; And then we turn away-and still thy kindness Pardons our blindness. And still thy rain descends, thy sun is glowing, Fruits ripen round, flowers are beneath us blowing, And, as if man were some deserving creature, Joys cover nature. Oh, how long-suffering, Lord! but thou delightest Who can resist thy gentle call-appealing Father and Saviour! plant within that bosom Then place them in those everlasting gardens, Where angels walk, and seraphs are the wardens; Where every flower that creeps through death's dark portal We like that strong, robust expression. No one having uttered it sincerely was ever a mean, cringing man. The pigmies of the world did not trouble him. He speaks, and the indomitable will prevail. His enemies fall before him. He rides forth a conqueror. Would you be great? Would you be distinguished for your literary or scientific attainments? Look not mournfully at your lot, but with 'I will' breathing upon your lips, and bursting from a great heart, you cannot but prevail. Show us the man that never rose higher than a toad-stool, and whose influence died with his breath, and we will point to you a cringing wretch, who trembled at the approach of a spider, and fainted beneath a thunder-cloud. Let the fires of energy play through your veins, and if your thoughts are directed in the right channels, you will yet startle the slumbering FAITH. "The Lord stood with me and strengthened mc. O say not thou art left of God, Because his tokens in the sky Thou canst not read; this earth he trod, Ho sces, beneath the fig-tree green, He enters through th' unopen'd door. In glory, girt with saints around, He stands above thee through the night. When friends to Emmaus bend their course, He joins, although he holds their eyes; Or shouldst thou feel some fever's force, He takes thy hand, he bids thee risc. Or, on a voyage, when calms prevail, And prison thee upon the sca, He walks the wave, he wings the sail; The shore is gain'd, and thou art free. WHERE DOES THE DAY BEGIN? At whatever period use may have determined the moment of a day's commencement, whether from sunset or sunrise, from twelve at midnight or twelve at noon, the week day (Sunday, Monday, &c.) commences earliest in the East, where the sun rises, and latest in the West, in the direction of his setting. Sunday at London bcgins, in any such conventional mode of reckon ing, always one hour earlier than, for instance, on the east coast of Iceland, on a meridian fifteen degrees west of London, whercas Sunday begins at Bornholm, in the Baltic, fifteen degrees cast of London, one hour earlier than at London. So, also, when it is noon in London, it is six o'clock in the evening at Calcutta, and six in the morning of the same day at New Orleans, because these places are a hundred and eighty degrees apart; and London is intermediate, being ninety degrees distant from both. The result, then, is, that Monday at Bornholm begins whilst it is still Sunday at London, and this discrepancy lasts one hour. At Calcutta, Monday begins six hours earlier than in London, and has already advanced twelve hours at Calcutta before the day has commenced at New Orleans. The commencement of the day is, therefore, on no fixed spot, like the zero of longitude and latitude, but varies with every meridian. Were the diurnal motion of the earth suspended indefinitely, the day would be of indefinite duration, and would be assignable to fixed points of the earth's surface, as would the night also. it LOVE OF CHANGE. Both in subjects of the intellect and the senses, to be remembered that the love of change is a weakness and imperfection of our nature, and implies in it the state of probation. And it will be found that they are the weakest-minded and the hardest-hearted men that most love variety and change; for the weakest minded are those who both wonder most at things new, and digest worst things old; and the hardest hearted are those that least feel the endearing and binding power of custom, and hold on by no cords of affection to any shore, but drive with the waves that cast up mire and dirt.-Ruskin. BROECK AND ITS VICINITY. Nothing can exceed the vivid colours of the country-houses one meets in this region. The brightest of greens, the gayest of reds, the richest of blues, cover their surfaces. They are generally separated from the road by the ditches which form a sort of network over the landscape, and the proper way of reaching them is indicated by a wooden door, regularly built up and standing alone made, in fact, for making's sake-on the edge of the ditch. You cross the wooden bridge and enter the farm. The pasturage, upon which so much depends, is stacked close by the house, and is generally built up round a strong pole, to prevent its dispersion in a stormy wind, which sometimes unmercifully sweeps over the flat lands. As they are finished, they are surrounded by other poles, supporting a moveable roof, which is drawn downwards as the stack is consumed, and so it is sheltered while any remains. The farmhouse will strike the stranger most forcibly by the solid comforts it exhibits, the rich massive furniture it contains, the looking-glasses, in ponderous carved frames, and the heaps of rich old Japanese and other china, which abound everywhere -an evidence of the former trade of the country, once so exclusively and prosperously carried on. But the wonders of the farm are the dairies; here they revel in cleanliness, sprinkling the stalls of the stables with snow-white sand, stroked with a variety of ornamental geometric figures by the broom, when the cows are away; and when these are present, they are as carefully attended to as if they were children, their tails being hung in loose strings to the ceiling, lest they should dabble in the mire! When the cold season sets in, the animals are protected in the fields by a coarse sacking fastened over their backs, and the milkmaids are paddled lazily up the stagnant canals that pass round each field, until she lands on the square patch of swampy grass, achieves her labours, gets into her boat, and is pushed and paddled by a stout swain, pipe in mouth, to the next rectangular plot, until her pails are sufficiently filled, when she is pushed gently towards the farm. There is no use in hurrying a Dutchman, he does all things leisurely; anxiety on your part will only make him more perseveringly stolid, and irritation more obstinately immoveable. M To see the perfection of Dutch cleanliness, or village life run mad, the stranger should visit the renowned Broeck, in Waterland, as the district is properly termed in which it is situated, on the shores of the Zuyder Zee. From Amsterdam the grand ship canal, which extends for nearly fifty miles to the Texel, will be seen en route, and a four-mile drive deposits the stranger at the entrance of the village. There he must alight and walk over the village, for all carriages and horses are forbidden to enter this paradise of cleanliness. It is recorded that the Emperor Alexander was obliged to take off his shoes before entering a house. A pile of wooden sabots at the doors testify the usual custom of its inhabitants. The rage for keeping all tidy' has even carried its inhabitants so far as to tamper with the dearest of a Dutchman's treasures-his pipe; for it is stipulated that he wear over it a wire network, to prevent the ashes from falling on the footpaths; these are constructed of small coloured bricks, arranged in fancy patterns, and are sometimes sanded and swept in forms like those we have described in dairies. Nothing can exceed the brightness of the paint, the polished coloured tiles on the roofs, or the perfect freedom from dirt exhibited by the cottages, which look like wooden Noah's arks in a genteel toyshop. The people who live in this happy valley are mostly well off in the world, and have made fortunes in trade, retiring here to enjoy Dutch felicity. The pavilion and garden of one rich old clergyman, Mynheer Babber, has long been a theme of admiration. The good man revelled in a caricature of a garden, in which he had sunk much money: and at his death left a will by which it should be kept up. This is no inexpensive thing in Broeck, for, owing to the boggy nature of the soil, it continually requires attention and renovation. In this garden are crowded summer-houses and temples of every fanciful style yet 'unclassified.' Plump Dutch divinities stare at wooden clergymen, who pore over wooden books in sequestered corners; while wooden sportsmen aim at wooden ducks rotting in the stagnant water. The climax of absurdity is reached at a small cottage, constructed in the garden, to show how the country folks make the money.' You enter, and your guide disappears as rapidly as a Dutchman can, and leaves you to contemplate a well-furnished room, engraved; bunches of light gold flowers hang at each side of the face, and pins and rosettes are stuck above them. It would seem as if a Dutchman really loved the ponderous, for nowhere else may be seen the weighty wooden carriages in which they delight to drive along the with abundance of crockery, an immense clock, and a well-stored tea-table, at which sit two wooden puppets as large as life; the old man smoking his pipe, and preparing the flax, which the old woman spins, after the field labours are over. All the movements of these figures are made by clock-work, worked by the in-country roads; they are solid constructions visible gardener, and concealed under the floor, In former times the good lady hummed a song; but her machinery being now out of order, the stranger is only greeted on his entrance by some spasmodic yelps from a grim wooden dog, who always faithfully keeps watch and ward at her feet. In Broeck, no one enters a house by the front door, nor is any one seen at a front window. The front of a house is where the 'best parlours' are, which are sacred to cleanliness and solitude. Irving's description of such an apartment is rigidly true: 'the mistress and her confidential maid visited it once a-week, for the purpose of giving it a thorough cleaning, and putting things to rights; always taking the precaution of leaving their shoes at the door, and entering devoutly on their stocking-feet. After scrubbing the floor, sprinkling it with fine white sand, which was curiously stroked into angles, and curves, and rhomboids; after washing the windows, rubbing and polishing the furniture, and putting a new bunch of evergreens in the fireplace, the window-shutters were again closed to keep out the flies, and the room carefully locked up till the revolution of time brought round the weekly cleaning-day. The people of Broeck always enter their houses by back doors, like so many burglars; and to insure the front door from unholy approach, the steps leading up to it are removed, never to be placed there but when three great occasions open the mystic gate, and these are births, marriages, and funerals; so that to enter a Dutchman's house by that way is indeed an 'event.' The country girls generally wear plain caps; but the richer farmers' daughters, particularly in North Holland, are extremely fond of a display of the precious metals in their head-dress. Pins of gold, to which heavy pendants hang, and elaborated ear-rings, frequently appear, and occasionally the hair is overlaid entirely by thin plates of gold covered with lace; the forehead banded with silver richly of timber, elaborately carved and painted, resting on the axles, and never having springs-which, indeed, are not so essentially necessary as with us, owing to the softness and flatness of the roads. The guide-posts are equally massive, and the outstretched hands with stumpy fingers which point the route to be taken, seem to be made for future generations. The wooden shoes of the peasantry make the foot the most conspicuous part of the body, and insure slowness; while in some places the horses are provided with a broad patten strapped across the foot, and making their movements as measured and sedate as their masters.' The tenderness with which they look after their beasts, and comb and plait their tails, shows no necessity for a 'Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals' in Holland. Their solicitude for their cows we have already noted; and the number of their charitable institutions is so great, that poverty or want never meets the eye of a traveller. There is a well-fed comfort pervading all classes, and a scrupulous neatness and order over the whole country, the result of a constant cheerful in| dustry, which scarcely asks for rest. VILLAGE BARBERS. We have gotten a new barber in the village. It is a good thing to have a barber in the country. You hear all the news, all the weddings, the engagements, the lawsuits, and other festive matters in his aromatic shop. Our former Master Nicholas has left us suddenly—' Maestro Nicolas quando barbero del mismo pueblo.' We miss him very much. I used to admire his long and learned essay upon the 'uman air. The uman air, for want of capillary attraction, could not maintain its place upon the uman ead without the united juices of one undred and fifty-five vegetables.' So long as he devoted himself to procuring the necessary vegetables, and hung his argument upon a hair, he did very well. It was pleasant to doze under his glib fingers and his vegetable philosophy. But, unfortunately, he got into politics. Barbers usually have excitable think of the future. One day, among others, he happened to have met a re temperaments. The barber of our village became the softest of the softs. He was ready to argue with anybody and every-pulse from three houses, and thought of body, in his garden of spices.' One day, while I was under his tuition, at the end of a prolonged debate with one of his sitters, by way of clinching his point, he did me the honour of tapping me twice upon the cranium with the back of his hair-brush. Sir,' said he (tap), 'I tell you that is so' (heavy tap). In consequence, I predicted his speedy downfal. Sure enough, he laid a wager that his candidate wonid have a majority in our village over all the rest of the candidates, and the next election only gave his candidate two votes. Next day qur barber was missing. Public Vandalism had crushed him. We have procured a new barber. He is in the dyeing line of business. It is the colour, not the quantity, of hair that engages all his lubricating efforts. To convert the frost of age into a black or brown scalp, is the highest ambition of his genius. Not only that; he anticipates time, and suggests preventive treatment to younger men. To me he is excessively tiresome. I have bought me a new dog: a snowwhite terrier, with rose-coloured ears and paws. She is as white as a new-plucked cotton, or February clouds. All our other dogs, Jack, Zack, and Flora, are black; Juno, by contrast, looks strikingly white. One day I found four black dogs under the porch. Of the four, I should say Juno was the blackest. She had been to the barber's on a visit, and he had given her a coat of his confounded Praxiteles balNow she is growing out of it; but her present appearance is so repulsive, that the other dogs will not associate with her. Some day I mean to give that barber a talking about the matter. sam. LUTHER'S YOUTH. At Isenac, as at Madgeburg, the scholar, when pressed by hunger, was compelled to join his schoolfellows, and to sing with them in front of the houses, for the sake of a morsel of bread. This practice of Luther's times is kept up to this day in several towns of Germany, and the voices of the youths sometimes produce a delightful concert. Often did the poor and shy Martin get nothing but hard words instead of bread, and then it was that, in the depth of his distress, he would shed bitter tears in secret, and tremble to going back fasting to his night quarters, when, on his way through St George's Place, he made a halt, and stood motionless and melancholy before the house of an honest burgess. Is it possible that for want of bread he must give up his studies, and return to work with his father in the mines of Mansfeld? All at once a door opened, a woman appeared on the threshold; this was the wife of Conrad Cotta, the daughter of the burgomaster of Ilefeld. Her name was Ursula, and the chronicles of Isenac call her the pious Shunamite. This pious Shunamite had more than once observed young Martin in the assembly of the faithful, and had been struck with the soft tones of his voice and by his devotion. She had heard the harsh words that had been addressed to the poor scholar, and seeing him standing at her door, rapt in sad reflections, she beckoned him to enter, and set before him wherewithal to satisfy his hunger. Conrad approved of the kindness shown by his wife, and was so taken with young Luther's society, that he some days after made him an inmate of his house. From that moment there was no cause to fear for his studies; all necessity for returning to the mines of Mansfeld, and burying the talent which God had given him, was removed. When he knew not what was to become of him, God opened to him the heart and the door of a Christian family. Very different now was the life of Luther; enjoying a calm existence, with neither cares nor wants to trouble him, his mind became more serene, his character more sprightly, and his heart more open. He became more ardent in prayer, his thirst for knowledge increased, and his progress was rapid. To literature and the sciences he added the charms of the arts; for these, too, were then rising into importance in Germany. Luther learned to play on the flute and on the lute; on the latter instrument he would often play an accompaniment to his fine deep voice, and thus would he cheer his heart in its moments of sadness. He loved the art even to old age, and composed both the music and the words to some of the most beautiful hymns that Germany possesses. Several of these have even been adopted in France. Luther was never ashamed of those days when, under the pressure of hunger, he would mournfully beg for the bread he required, in order that he might at once study and live; far from this, he recalled with thankfulness the sore necessities of his younger days, regarding them as among the means employed by God for making him what he afterwards became, and for which he would express his gratitude; | his heart felt for poor boys obliged to follow the same mode of life. Despise not,' he would say, 'boys who, by singing before your doors, seck panem propter Deum (bread for the love of God). I too have done the same. It is true that at a later time my father supported me very lovingly and bountifully at the University of Erfurt, and that with the sweat of his brow; nevertheless, I was once a poor applicant for alms. And now, with the help of my pen, I would not exchange fortunes with the Grand Turk. Still more, were all this world's wealth to be piled up in a heap, I would not take it in exchange for what I possess. And yet I never should have reached the place I now occupy, had I never been at school, and never taught to write.' Thus does the great man trace the origin of his glory in these first humble beginnings. | He does not scruple to recall the fact, that that voice of his, which startled the empire and the world, used at one time to sue for a bit of bread in the streets of a poor city. The vigour of Luther's intellect, the liveliness of his imagination, and his excellent memory, enabled him speedily to outstrip all his fellow-students, and he made rapid progress in the ancient languages, in eloquence, and in poetry. He wrote discourses and made verses. Gay, obliging, and what is called good-hearted, he endeared himself to his masters and to his comrades.-D'Aubigné. THE OLD APPLE-TREE. I am so rejoiced to spend my first 'spring-time in the country' in such a beautiful home. I have examined the village from every window in the house, and my conclusion is, that there is not another dwelling within its bounds for which I would exchange my own. There is none with so large a piece of ground attached; much less one displaying equal taste in the arrangements. A sinuous, dimpling brook enters the yard on the north side; passes along the south, keeping mostly near the fence, winding here round the base of a hillock, and there passing beneath the roots of an old apple-tree; then turns suddenly toward the east; then toward the north again; and after thus partially enclosing the house, curves to the east once more, and passes out. Its clear, laughing waters plainly show the shining pebbles and yellow sand which compose its bed; and the white clover which borders its banks is as beautiful as possible. It is delightfully shaded with trees-appletrees the greater part of them are, combining beauty with utility. There is one exceedingly large one, gnarled and mossy, overhanging its waters, and a limb extends out just on the edge of the bank, so low that it forms a delightful seat. There is a knoll, covered and surrounded by a perfect thicket of roses and lilacs, hiding this limb from the house, for which I am not at all sorry, as I am not certain how far my father is willing for me to become ruralised, and I prefer not to be seen by him up in a tree. Now that the apple-trees and lilacs are in bloom, and their perfunie is filling the air to absolute intoxication, I find my seat in the old apple-tree a most delightful hiding-place, and spend a considerable part of every day there, with my books or sewing. I notice that my dominions are passing out of my hands, however; for my father is taking hold of the garden and yard, as though nature had intended him for a horticulturist. Well, I can abdicate with a good grace, so long as I can have my retreat behind the lilacs and roses. The apple-blossoms have fallen, the lilacs have disappeared, but I find that the roses, which for a week past have been swelling and bursting their green prisonhouses, are beautiful and fragrant enough to drown all regrets for the departed children of light and spring. Within a few days past, I have noticed two persons next door, a young gentleman and lady, who ever in their walks pause and gaze at my roses. I wish they had roses of their own to look at; it disturbs me to have things that other people do not, especially if I am sure they want them. If I were only acquainted with these strangers, I could give them a bouquet every day. The lady is very pale-perhaps she is just recovering from illness, and if so, how I know she longs for them! for I have not forgotten the tears I shed last summer after a fever, when I saw a bunch of flowers go by the window, and I could |
